Hi everybody, in the tradition of all real-life pilots-to-be reporting about their milestone experiences in their training, I'd like to tell you about my first solo in the traffic circuit I had on Friday.
For understanding of the context: I'm currently training to be a pilot of microlight planes of the "aerodynamically controlled" type. IIRC these things are known as VLA (very light aircraft) in the US, although some of the parameters (maximum MTOW etc.) are different. So I'm not flying trikes but merely a much smaller and lighter version of what you PPL-pilots out there are using. I'm training on a Comco Ikarus C42B, of which a model for FlightGear is in the making (detailed static 3D model is nearly complete, FDM is a mess and no animation or scripting of specific instruments has yet taken place ;-) ). On Thursday it happened to happen that the conditions of myself having time off from my dayjob, not being too tired from it and the weather being VMC (lower limits, however) met on the same day. I hadn't had any lessons for nearly a month and the last one was a bit frustrating because the landings just didn't want to work the way I wanted them to, which - as I learned later on - was due to several factors I couldn't expect to counter at my stage of training, one of them being the maintenance guy who had fastened some screws in the front gear a bit too hard which made control of rudder and steering wheel harder and much less precise. It makes a whole lot of a difference whether you can control the rudder with only small forces or whether you need to literally stump on the pedals to actually move them. And on Thursday we went to our training airodrome (landing fees there allow us to do ten times more landings for the same price as at our home base), did some coordination training (following curvy roads) as well as some navigation training in bad visibility, and then I did my first landing for that day, which was absolutely perfect! We did 8 landings in total and all of them were at least safe, even though not perfect in my mind (I expect my passengers not to know that we're on the ground again ;-) ) In the break we did in between my instructor already babbled something about not letting me do a solo "today yet", but there was something in that "yet"... On the following day, Friday, we went to that aerodrome again and I did 3 landings, all of which were safe again. On the fourth landing my instructor added a little spice by simulating an engine failure for me to see that essentially that doesn't make a huge problem when you're almost on the runway and high enough. After that landing we taxied to the apron and he tried to assure me that we would have a short break now. He's a very talented actor, but I was already prepared and it seemed awkward to do a break after that few landings. He left the plane on the apron and then told me to do 3 or 4 landings solo. I don't need to tell you I was nervous as hell, however, somehow I didn't notice the "forgetting how to fly" effect others had told me of. I taxied to the taxi holding point, reported that I would taxi onto the runway and takeoff as soon as the recently-landed powered glider had left it. When the runway was clear, I went onto the runway, set flaps and full power and finally was on my first real solo takeoff run. Soon after the tires left the ground, the nervousness transformed into pure excitement. I can't say I was relaxed but I wasn't exactly tense either. The plane climbed like I'd never seen it climb before so I was on traffic circuit altitude already before turning crosswind. Suddenly I had so much time between leveling the plane and crossing abeam threshold (which is the point for starting descent in the procedure I've learnt) so I could really enjoy the view. In the second or third downwind I was flying the engine suddenly seemed to run lumpy, so I tried some of the standard procedures to check the engine I had learnt. Pulling carburetor heat (we had high humidity and 16-17 degrees Celsius outside temperature), trying a different RPM, etc. I blame it on being alone in the plane for the first time, where one probably tends to hear ghosts, but there was nothing wrong with the engine. I just wanted to go on and on and on, but it was already near sunset so we had to return to our home base soon. After the fourth landing I parked the plane and my instructor came along showing "thumbs up". We had a short break and then went home. The end of that flight was marked by the very first real-life landing in EDNY which I did totally on my own: "No hands" for my instructor ;-) As compared to the other typical traffic in EDNY we are relatively slow, we tend to do fast landings, coming to 50m aside the runway descending with about 140-160km/h and cruise power setting (normal approach speed is 110km/h), do a relatively steep turn and align to the runway, then reducing the speed by a long flare. There is an agreement between the microlight pilots at EDNY and the controllers that, as soon as we're cleared direct into base or right base we rush to the runway using that "procedure" and it often gives a spectacular view from the outside and a pretty nice "dynamic" feeling from the inside. Controllers love to clear us "direct" to base even if there is no other traffic around which would require it ;-) To sum it up: Being solo for the first time is a feeling nobody who hasn't yet experienced it can imagine and it is an impression I'll never forget. It also took me some time to actually realise everything I had experienced on that half hour of being solo so this is one of the reasons why I didn't write earlier. Next report: first cross-country solo or passing of theoretical exam, whichever comes first ;-) Cheers, Ralf ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. 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